Alone in the Shadows
by Verity58
Summary: The war against the Organization has taken a turn for the worse, and finally, Conan Edogawa is feeling the strain. As memories of a traumatic past and nightmares of a dark future rise up to haunt him, he finds himself struggling to maintain his cheerful façade. How can anyone keep themselves sane, after all, when their entire life is a lie and they're fighting for justice alone?
1. Prologue

A/N: This fic is mildly AU, in that I've mixed events around so that they take place in a different order. I'll give you more details on that later. I've also stirred up a couple of different backstories, because as we all know, poor Conan doesn't have enough on his plate already. (Oh, these poor characters. Hee-hee!)

The 'T' rating is going to be for angst and descriptions of violence.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

The boy stood silent in the center of the room, still and straight as he stared at the horrifying scene playing out on the TV in front of him. To his left, a tall, dark-skinned teenager looked on grimly. To his right, a small, brown-haired girl sat on a couch, her eyes fixed piercingly on the screen.

There were a handful of other occupants in the room, as well, but although they each wore matching, stunned expressions, there was something different about the boy, the girl, and the teenager. Their eyes were shadowed, their gazes intense, their mouths set in lines of bleak determination. They weren't merely _surprised _at the news they saw—they _knew _something about it that everyone else did not.

Danger was in the air.

The female reporter continued her speech, the words falling into the silent, anxious room like stones. "This _massive _attack on American agents from both the FBI and CIA would seem to point toward a frighteningbreach of foreign protocol. Where the fault lies, however, is anyone's guess, as neither the American nor the Japanese governments have yet released any statements."

"That's… _awful_," said a seventeen-year-old girl on the left side of the room. Her dark hair was worn in a ponytail, and a darker frown was worn on her face. "Ran, didn't cha you know some guys from the FBI?"

Ran, who was standing just behind the two boys in the room's center, nodded her head miserably. "I used to have an English teacher who was an agent, but… She said that she wasn't here on duty. I thought she was just… _teaching_."

"The report said that Jodie-sensi wasn't killed," the smaller of the two boys whispered, speaking up for the first time. Then, to himself, he added, "…I don't think we'll be seeing her around, though."

The second boy and the girl on the couch exchanged a dark look.

"…question is in the air of how the attack will affect relations between our two nations," the reporter continued in a grave tone. "We take you now to Toshio Kato-san, who is standing in front of the American embassy…"

"I'm going to go make some tea for everyone," said a voice from the back of the room. A plump, balding man shook his head as he turned toward the door that led out of his living room, his face a deathly shade of white. Like the two boys and the little girl, he seemed to be more deeply shaken than the others, but his eyes didn't hold the same grim darkness that theirs did. "Twenty-six agents dead," he murmured as he disappeared from view. "_Twenty-six agents_…"

"Reports are now coming in that the massacre may have been led by an unnamed American convict who fled to Japan after his escape from a top-security prison. If this is true, then it is good news for both sides of the conflict—especially for Japan, seeing as how it would mean that no Japanese citizens were involved in the attack. As for the United States, however, even if the agents were simply chasing an _American_ target, the current extradition treaty states that…"

"I'm going to help Agasa-hakase," Ran said after a moment. "I can't listen to this."

"I'm comin', too," the girl with the ponytail said. "They're just sayin' the same things over an' over. Heiji, let us know if anything new happens, 'kay?"

The dark-skinned boy nodded once, his eyes still glued to the screen.

The girls and the man took their time in the kitchen. It was just as well. Neither Heiji nor the two children so much as twitched a muscle as they watched, eyes probing, absorbing every detail of the report.

"I find it ironic," said the girl at last. Her voice, though little more than a quiet hum, held far more grave importance than could be expected from a seven-year-old. "The entire nation is in distress because they believe that relations between our two countries are falling apart, but that particular side of the issue has nearly no meaning at all."

"There's gonna be _some_ meaning to it, Haibara-san," Heiji argued back without turning his head. "_Wars _have started over less than this."

Haibara disagreed. "Japan is concerned because Americans were attacked on their soil, while America is concerned because they were discovered in the midst of an illegal investigation. Relations were exemplary until the incident. The Americans, at least, know for certain that neither side meant any harm, and will be desperate to patch things over quickly. Both parties have much to lose from breaking ties with the other, and each country is strong enough that a war would be catastrophic. I would be highly surprised if the event was not smoothed over within a week."

There was another moment of silence before Heiji spoke again. "You think it's the government or the Organization that's started spreadin' the 'unnamed convict' story?" he asked in a low voice.

"It doesn't matter," said a third voice. Both Heiji and Haibara turned to look as Conan Edogawa, the small boy in the room's center, grimly voiced his opinion. "The effect is the same, either way."

"You know what this means, don't you?" Heiji asked, his bright green eyes staring into the keen blue ones of his companion.

Conan's fists clenched. "_Of course I do._"

The words, spoken softly, signaled the beginning of another long silence, and this time, it went unbroken. Until now, Conan and the others had been able to count on their allies from the FBI to back them up, to be their partners in investigation, and to help them out of tight situations. Now, with the horrible news of the attack, there was no way that the small, undercover stream of agents would be able—or allowed—to continue their work on foreign soil.

The small group of friends was utterly, entirely alone.


	2. Broken Promise

A/N: Yay, the second chapter is up already! Actually, I have a couple more chapters already written; I just need to double-check them one last time, so you should be seeing them soon. We'll see how much more I'll be able to get done before I go on my mission, but hopefully, I'll be able to give you a decent-ish slice of this fic before I leave.

_Now, some notes on the timeline to avoid confusion:_ the prologue took place sometime after Okiya Subaru moved into Shinichi's house. I'll leave it up to you readers to decide how much time has passed between the prologue and this chapter, but just know that this chapter _does_ take place _after_ the prologue. I've adjusted the timeline so that the Desperate Revival comes after the Clash of Red and Black.

(And thanks to those who reviewed the prologue! I like reviews. Very much.) ;)

So, without further ado, here's the next bit of the story. I hope you like it, and be sure to tell me what you think!

* * *

The world took forever to move from the dull ache of darkness to a frigid, throbbing reality. Suppressing a groan, Conan blinked and tried feebly to move his tender limbs.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead," said a childish, feminine, and distinctly sarcastic voice from somewhere to his right.

_What in the world…?_ Conan's head spun as he tried and almost failed to raise himself to a sitting position. All at once, the memory of searing heat and shooting pain rushed back in a flood of information, and he realized where he was and why he was there. The vivid recollection almost knocked him to the ground again.

"H-Haibara?" he asked, looking over to his right.

"Who else would it be? Give me your arm."

Conan stared dumbly for a moment at the small, brunette girl sitting next to him. "_What_?"

Haibara sighed. "Your _arm_, Kudo-kun. It will be fairly difficult to make a full medical assessment without even taking your blood pressure."

"Oh." Now feeling vaguely self-conscious, Conan pushed up the sleeve of his too-big shirt and extended his arm in her direction.

While Haibara adjusted the blood pressure cuff, Conan gazed about himself, blearily taking in his surroundings. He had been in too much pain to examine the area when he'd first come into the room, but now that he was (mostly) better, he took a careful look. He was in the men's bathroom of a moderately fancy restaurant in Tokyo. There were five stalls with dividers that didn't quite reach the floor, one medium-sized trash can, one exit (currently out of sight behind a brick partition), and an air vent too small to crawl through near the ceiling on his left. His scan was habitual, quick, and thorough. There were few hiding places, only one exit, and not many objects that could be used as a weapon.

Conan let out a short little breath and slumped forward, feeling exhausted. He thought to be grateful that although he was dizzy, he still seemed able to think straight. The room may have been spinning around him, but he could function—he had just solved a case while feeling much worse than this, after all.

_A case,_ Conan mused, a feeling of unease gnawing at the back of his mind. _The case. The case is solved, but there's still something I have to…_

No. Oh, no.

_Ran_.

The thought shot through him like a bolt of lightning. Ran was still sitting at their table, waiting for him to finish his case! He had promised her that he would be back soon, and that he'd tell her what he'd… Oh, _Kami_, no! A surge of anger, guilt, sorrow, and desperation drove him almost to his feet, but a hand on his chest pushed him back.

"Your girlfriend will have to wait," Haibara said, removing the cuff from his bicep. "We agreed beforehand that you would let me examine you after you transformed."

"I… Not _now_, Haibara! I can't… I _promised_ her I'd—…"

Haibara leaned a couple inches closer, her voice growing icy despite its soft, childish timbre. "You just took an experimental antidote for an untested poison that shrunk you to the age of a first grader. If you (a) ever want to regain your original body, or (b) _live_, then I highly recommend you stay put."

For a moment, Conan fought against the steely gaze and the logic that came with it, but the matter was out of his hands. Swallowing heavily, he dropped his eyes back to the floor and waited while Haibara stood, crossed over to a small duffel bag sitting not too far away, and tucked the blood pressure cuff back inside.

"You do realize that even if you rush back to her, you won't be able to keep whatever promise you made, right?" she said in a neutral tone.

"I _know_," Conan snapped in response. He felt sick, and not from the transformation. The realization that he would not be able to confess his love was still sinking in, and coupled with the fact that he had already been abandoning and lying to and hiding from Ran for _months_…

Why had he had to turn back into 'Conan'" _now_? Of all the miserable, nightmarish times, why _now_?

"Any difficulty breathing?" Haibara asked with a glance over her shoulder. "Any numbness in your limbs? Dizziness?"

Conan wiped a bit of sweat off of his face with one of his impossibly long sleeves. "Breathing's fine," he muttered. "No numbness. I'm dizzy, and woke up feeling disoriented, but it's fading fast." He paused, and realized for the first time that he was shivering violently. "I do feel _cold_, though. I think it's mostly in contrast to the heat from before."

Haibara nodded once. She then retrieved a clipboard and pen from her bag and proceeded to scribble madly in practiced kanji that no ordinary first grader should know. Looking over her shoulder, Conan could see two sets of children's clothing folded neatly in the bag, as well as an assortment of medical equipment and a handful of odd-looking, sealed containers. He noted with approval that the bag was unremarkable, small enough to be carried around by a child without looking suspicious, and could be held by either a boy or a girl without seeming out of character.

A slight chill ran through him as his eyes wandered to the floor on one side, where a flawless mask of his own face stared up at him. Haibara must have left it there after she had taken it off.

He hoped that no one would notice that while two boys—one of which was a teenager—had walked _into _the bathroom, only one boy and a first-grade girl would walk _out_.

"I'm assuming you put a sign on the door, right?" Conan asked, gingerly forcing himself to a standing position. The tile floor of the restaurant's bathroom was cold against his bare feet, which had slipped out of the shoes and socks he'd been wearing before.

"'Cleaning in progress, please use other restroom,'" Haibara commented without looking up from her notes. "You're lucky that no one was in here when you ran in."

Conan grimaced slightly, knowing that "lucky" was a serious understatement. If someone had been in here, and he had started to transform…

"I didn't think that the antidote would wear off so fast," he said, bitterness and irritation seeping into his tone. "If you had _warned _me—…"

"You know as well as I do that this was an _experiment_," Haibara replied calmly. "You could have died, and I could have hardly been held responsible for your irrational decision." She glanced up for a moment, her pen pausing in its work. "Any lingering pain, at this point?

"I feel like I was unsuccessfully clubbed to death from the inside."

"On a scale of one to ten, how bad?"

Conan thought for a moment. "Four." He was sore, but the pain paled in comparison to most of the injuries he'd had.

"…And at the peak of the transformation, what was the pain?"

"I_ blacked out, _Haibara."

Haibara nodded, ignoring his sarcasm. Her pen was moving again. "…And how long was the time between when you first noticed symptoms of the change and the time when you actually transformed?"

There was a moment's hesitation before Conan spoke. "About twenty minutes. Maybe twenty-five."

Haibara's pen was still. "_Twenty-five minutes?"_

"That's not all that much different from when I took the Paikaru. I don't think it should be something to worry about."

"Kudo," Haibara said, her normally careless voice gaining an edge of steel. "_Twenty-five minutes_ is _more_ than enough time to find a better hiding place than the men's room of a busy restaurant."

For reasons that Conan didn't quite understand, he stiffened and glared at Haibara defensively. "I was involved with a case! What was I supposed to do? Abandon the victim and let the killer go free?"

For a moment, it looked like Haibara was hovering on the edge of speech, but after a pause, the fire in her eyes had died back down to a muted, gleaming greyness. Whatever words she had wanted to say remained locked inside.

"I'll need the heart rate monitor I gave you," she said quietly instead.

Wordlessly, Conan slid the adjustable black band off of his chest and handed it over.

The "full medical examination" resumed with heavy silence on both sides. Conan wasn't quite sure, exactly, what had triggered the sudden tension in the air, but the atmosphere did nothing to draw his thoughts away from Ran and how disappointed she was sure to be. Each second was an agony—he half-wondered if Haibara was being slow on purpose. Dozens of questions rolled by, along with instructions on how to take a saliva sample later, once he'd waited long enough that food particles wouldn't contaminate the sample. She drew blood, measured his height, and took notes about everything from the dilation of his pupils to the pallor of his skin.

By the time that Conan was finally allowed to leave, he'd had a good, long time to think about Ran, Haibara, his own, shrunken state, and the demonic Organization that had turned his life on its head.


	3. Façade

A/N: I just got back from a vacation to California! Beach. Sunset. Pretty. 'Nuff said. :)

Anyway, I would've had this posted last week, but I've been gone, so it wasn't an option. Hopefully, this chapter was worth the slight delay, though! The events of the series have, once again, been slightly altered, and after this, I'll be moving on to some more strictly original plotting. If you have any praise, critique, or random comments, be sure to send them my way!

(Many thanks to those who have reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. It's an enormous motivation to know that there are people out there who read my work!)

* * *

"He left me again."

The words hit Conan like a blow to the chest. Never, in all his life, had he heard Ran sound so thoroughly, utterly dejected.

He cast his eyes downward, choosing painfully to stare at the tabletop in front of him rather than look at Ran's grief-stricken face. Peering over the edge of the table, he could just make out the cold remains of his meal sitting next to Ran's empty, discarded dishes. The warm glow of the restaurant's lights seemed to mock him with their false sense of cheer.

"Ran…" he tried to continue, but his throat had tightened rebelliously and was refusing to let the rest of the sentence out. Stuttering slightly, he swallowed once and forced himself to try again. "H-hey. Shinichi-niichan said—…"

"_No! Stop it!_"

Conan jerked as if he'd been slapped in the face.

Ran, who had her eyes shut, didn't see.

"I don't want to hear it!" she continued, pressing her hands over her ears as if she were in physical pain. "I don't want to hear any more excuses!"

A hollow ache settled somewhere in the middle of Conan's chest, replacing the restless energy that had been there only moments before. All through Haibara's examination, he had waited on the balls of his feet to get back to Ran. He had wanted so desperately to give her _something_ to make up for all of his excuses—to prove that he really did still care about her, to show her he was sorry, to let her know that he hadn't abandoned her entirely and was still looking out for her and _oh, Ran, can't you see that I'm right HERE?_—that he hadn't thought about what he would tell her when they were actually face to face.

At first, Conan was barely even aware that he'd begun to speak. His lips, as if of their own accord, moved automatically to form the words that had prefaced so many of his excuses: "Shinichi-niichan said…" but then he stopped, painfully aware that, whatever came next, it wouldn't be good enough.

What could he possibly say to the girl who thought he had abandoned her _again_?

"_Someday_," he whispered, his eyes on the floor. He was still barely aware that he was speaking aloud—nothing seemed quite real at the moment, and he spoke as if in a daze. Once he'd started, however, a deep, desperate need to say something _real_ forced him to continue, and he threw back his head and looked at Ran with a fire that came from the deepest part of himself. "Someday I'll come back, Ran! I swear it on my life! _Someday, I'll definitely return, even if I __die__!_"

He kept on spluttering helplessly after that, his mingling emotions too much to form into words. His declaration had caught Ran off guard, however, and she seemed to remember where she was and just whom was staring at her with a gaze that was strained, passionate—and on the face of someone very, very young.

"That's alright, Conan-kun!" she said, cutting him off with a forced, tremulous smile. "You don't have to look so intense."

"B-but I…"

"It's fine, Conan-kun. Really." She turned fully towards him then, bittersweet kindness filling her eyes. "Hey," she said, as if she'd been suddenly struck by a wonderful idea. "Are you hungry? I never had a chance to order dessert, and I'm sure that Shinichi won't mind if we get one for you."

A lump formed in Conan's throat. For a moment, he fought the urge to continue in his excuses, but he realized numbly that there was nothing left to say. He nodded once, and then climbed back into the chair that he had occupied as a different person not all that long ago.

Ran cheered up quickly after that, chattering to Conan aimlessly without seeming to notice that he was hardly answering back. It was an obvious attempt for her to smooth over her own heartache, but at least a smile was back on her face, even if it was fake. Ran had always been incredibly resilient, even in the worst situations.

As time passed, and Ran worked her way through her third dessert, Conan's found that there was no real need for him to even pretend to be listening. With a small, suppressed sigh, he turned his gaze to the window that looked out over the city, and studied his own reflection which hung in the shadowy glass.

A pale, bespectacled face looked back at him—tiny and helpless and weak.

He knew that he should feel happy. He knew that he should feel _triumphant_. The drug had worked as well as he could have hoped. Ran no longer suspected him. Two cases had been solved without incident, and even despite the fact that he had started transforming hours before he'd expected, no one had found out his secret and he had been able to sneak back into the shadows without notice.

Conan, however, didn't feel happy. He was entirely, utterly miserable.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't _fair_!

In the ten and a half months that he had lived as a shrunken, helpless grade-schooler, Conan had never once uttered the words 'why me?' …Now, however, on this train-wreck of a night, he found himself thinking something similar that made his stomach twist into knots.

Why _her_?

Why Ran?

Ran didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve the uncertainty, the endless waiting, the worry, the disappointment, and the feeling of abandonment that Conan had forced on her more times than he could count. ...And she didn't even _know _the worst of it! How would she react if she knew that Conan was being hunted by an organization that had never missed its mark? What if she knew that her _own _life was in danger just because she spoke to him every day?

He hated lying. He _hated _it. He hated lying, and being afraid, and hitting dead ends, and being alone, and he hated feeling so utterly, entirely helpless—oh, _Kami_, he hated feeling helpless—and he hated himself for making Ran hurt and—

A small bit of motion in the window's reflection caught Conan off guard. There was a tear trickling down his cheek.

Somewhere in the midst of his wordless tirade, Conan had started crying.

"…so obviously, I'm going to have to tell Sonoko that she's off her rocker," came Ran's voice, cutting into his thoughts.

A surge of panic sent Conan reeling as he realized that Ran, who had been gazing out over the restaurant, was turning her head back to look his way. There was no time to wipe the tear off his face—not with the glasses, which would get in the way and just make the problem more obvious.

A fraction of a second before she looked at him, he knocked his hand into his full glass of water, splashing his face and soaking his clothes.

_That may have been a slight overreaction_, Conan mused sardonically as he let out a childish yelp of feigned surprise. Hearing the noise, Ran jumped forward with napkins in hand as she called for a nearby waiter. Just in case, she asked if he was alright, and then laughed a bit at his wet and sullen face as she settled back into her chair.

Conan smiled back, and due to embarrassment, the gesture was almost genuine. Stupid. It wasn't as if a single, unexpected bout of emotion would have given his secret away, and now he was completely drenched.

…Still, he had no idea of how he would have explained his tears to Ran, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to make up another lie. As it was, it was too late to un-spill the water. At least the ploy had worked; as far as Conan could tell, Ran had no idea of the thoughts that had just been going through little "Conan-kun's" mind. The water had erased any indication of tears on his face, and he'd hardly been crying long enough for his eyes to be red. Even if he had been, though, then surely the redness could be explained from the shock of cold lemon water in his eyes.

Cold (ow) lemon water in his (ow) eyes.

Okay. _Now_ he was crying.

"Aagh," he moaned slightly, squeezing his eyes shut and raising his hands to his face. He drew the sound out a little bit longer than he normally would have, acting the part of the seven-year-old he was supposed to be. Inwardly, he cursed himself for an idiot and mused over the fact that it would be very, very difficult for tonight to get worse than it already was.

"Conan?" Ran asked, sounding concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"My eyes hurt," he whined, rubbing at them gently.

"Ohhh…" Ran's voice was suddenly understanding. "The lemon… Oh, ouch, Conan-kun! I'm so sorry! You'll have to rinse your eyes out with water."

"Yeah. I'm gonna go to the bathroom, Ran-neechan. You just stay here." He opened his eyes and smiled up at her, squinting and blinking in pain. "I'm a big boy now, and I don't need help!"

"If you're sure," Ran said, sounding reluctant, but Conan was already dashing away.

.*.*.*.

He couldn't decide whether the quiet of the bathroom was a blessed relief or a smothering weight. By the time he'd trudged through the door, not only had Haibara disappeared, but most of the restaurant's normal customers had long since headed home. There had been no one left to interrupt him as he'd briefly rinsed his eyes and wrung out his sopping clothes.

Conan sighed, hugging his legs to his chest as he sat on the bathroom floor. He kept his eyes trained carefully away from the mirrors, even though he wouldn't have been able to see his reflection at this angle, anyway. After cleaning up the best he could, he had felt himself freeze powerlessly at the sight of his own image, and he had stared numbly at it for several minutes before he was finally able to force himself to turn away.

He shrank back further against the wall, avoiding the nagging insistence that was starting to grow in the recesses of his mind. He needed to go back. Ran would be waiting.

…But he couldn't go.

He just _couldn't_.

Conan sat there for several stone-still minutes, staring into nothingness and wishing that time would stop entirely. Then, almost robotically, he unfolded his knees, reached into his pocket, and pulled out one of his twin cell phones—the one that he reserved for making calls as Shinichi.

It rang only twice before the person on the other end answered.

"Kudo?"

"Hey, Hattori? Can I ask you a question?"

On the other end of the line, Heiji Hattori paused for the briefest of instants before he responded. Noting the hesitation, Conan couldn't help but wonder exactly how much the other high school detective had been able to piece together just from hearing Conan's voice. Hattori had wandered off to some other part of Tokyo much earlier that day, muttering something about him and Kazuha being a 'third wheel.' It must have come as quite a surprise when Conan had called him, and been even more surprising to hear that Shinichi Kudo's voice was once again that of a grade-schooler.

"Sure thing," Hattori said. "What's the problem?"

"Just… where are you right now?"

"Uh… still in Tokyo. Kazuha's hungry, so we're just grabbin' somethin' to eat on the road an' then we're gonna head back to Osaka. Why?"

Conan hovered for a moment, indecisive, but then leaned his head back against the wall and swallowed his pride. "Do you think… could you come and pick me up? I was wondering if I could sleep over at your house tonight."

Another pause. Then, "You're at that fancy restaurant down by Rainbow Bridge, right?"

"Right."

"If you can get Neechan to agree, I'm fine with it," Hattori said. "Mom'll love to have you—she thinks you're the cutest little thing since they invented plush toys."

Conan winced slightly, but did his best to smile. "I owe you one."

"You owe me _two_ for the whole bit with the disguise this mornin', but we'll talk about that later. See ya' in a few, Kudo."

"Yeah. Bye."

Conan flicked the phone closed with a slight _snap_, stowed it back in his pocket, and then hauled himself to his feet. Carefully avoiding the mirrors, he headed back to the door and forced himself to step back out into the world.

He could do this. He could. Just a few more minutes with Ran, and then he would have the whole night ahead of him to pull himself together.

He pointedly ignored the bitter, nagging voice that told him it wouldn't make any difference. If there was one thing that the last twenty-four hours had taught him, it was that a small moment of bliss would do little to numb the ache when it was time to restart the façade.


	4. Silence and Shadows

A/N: (Yay for fast updates! *Pats self on back*)

Oh, rats… I just did a bit of research and found out that you can't get a driver license in Japan until age 18. I can't believe I didn't know that until now. I also can't believe that _I based this whole chapter on the assumption that Heiji could drive_. Unfortunately, I'll need to let things stay as they are. There are a couple of different reasons, but mostly, I just don't have the time to edit the chapter for something this big—I'd much rather spend my energy getting new chapters out to you readers, and I'm pretty sure that most of you would agree.

Maybe this is a red mark against my reputation as a writer. …But with any luck, my stories will be good enough that you'll be able to overlook a little creative license. ;) Either way, be sure to let me know what you think!

_The kid looks like a giant spit wad that just ran three marathons on no sleep_, thought Heiji as he watched Kudo coming toward him through the parking lot. _What in the world happened to 'im?_

"Hey, Conan!" Kazuha called from the passenger seat as soon as Kudo was close enough to hear. "You all set?"

"Yup," Kudo said with an exhausted smile. He pulled open the door of Heiji's father's car and clambered into the back without so much as a glance at his friend. Trying to hide a concerned frown, Heiji turned and waved cheerfully to Ran, who was standing near the doors of the restaurant, and then started the engine.

Kazuha looked over her shoulder at Kudo, who was sitting directly behind her. "You an' Ran know that this's a three hour drive, right?"

Kudo nodded wordlessly and finished buckling himself in.

"Ah, the kid'll be fine, Kazuha," Heiji said reassuringly when she continued to look skeptical. "He can sleep on the way over. Anyway, it's the weekend! He can sleep in as much as he wants, tomorrow."

"Guess so," she said with a shrug. "If Ran's okay with it, it's not like I'm gonna argue."

Heiji's brow furrowed slightly as he maneuvered out of the parking lot and pulled out onto the road. He wasn't sure how Kudo had convinced Ran to let him go, but he suspected that it had involved a lot of puppy-dog pleading combined with a twist of subtle, prodigy-detective-level logic. (It was such an effective combination that it was downright _scary_, sometimes). Now, however, the kid was barely making an effort at keeping up the act. He looked exhausted, slumped against the car door and staring at his knees. Whatever had happened at the restaurant must have hit him like a katana to the gut.

"Well," Heiji said, stubbornly holding to his usual bright cheerfulness, "The chibi's got good taste, anyway. Osaka's _way_ better'n Tokyo, any day of the week."

"You know, if you keep on sayin' that, Ran an' everyone will stop lettin' you visit 'em."

"What? I _did_ spend all day tourin' the area, even after Kudo ditched us." It was true. Though Heiji's pride as an Osakan told him that no place would ever be able to compete with his hometown, he'd decided that he might as well use the day to see what Tokyo had to offer. Kudo had seemed happy enough on his own, after all, and seeing as how Heiji's 'dress-up-like-Kudo-and-sneak-into-Ran's-school-pl ay-to-surprise-Conan-and-help-keep-his-identity-sa fe' plan had flopped, he'd figured that he might as well get _something _out of the stupid trip.

Heiji grimaced a bit as he realized just how much resentment had bubbled up in reaction to that line of thought. He knew that he was being unfair. It was hardly Kudo's fault that Heiji had stumbled in on his own, more convincing, plans. …And after spending so long being forced to lie and to hide and to run away from his closest friend, who could blame Kudo for wanting to spend the rest of the day alone with her?

At least everything had gone smoothly. Even the unexpected case that had popped up halfway through the play had been resolved without a hitch, and had been wrapped up in time for the gang to catch a late lunch. Ran was convinced that Shinichi wasn't Conan, Haibara had played her part with no one the wiser, and Kudo didn't seem to be dead or suffering from some other horrible pill-related catastrophe. Really, things had gone as well as anyone could have hoped.

Still. You'd have thought that Kudo would have at least _told _him what he was planning. Even just a short, to the point text message would have been nice. 'hi, hattori. sup? im going 2 risk my life trying an untested drug 2 get my body back. it should convince ran im not conan. cul8r, if I don't die!'

Sheesh. Stupid chibi.

…Also, Heiji was feeling a little miffed at Kazuha, Ran, and the entire Tokyo police force, right now. He wasn't sure whether he should be amused or alarmed that no one had been surprised to find him _cosplaying_ as his rival detective.

"Oi. Heiji. _Hei-ji!_" Kazuha's indignant (read _loud_) voice cut sharply into his thoughts. "Is anyone home in ahou-ville, or are you just bein' an idiot again?"

Heiji shot her a less-than-charitable glance. "_Sheesh!_ You don't hafta _yell_!"

Kazuha returned his look with an equally sardonic one of her own. "I've been tryin' to get yer attention for _ages_, ahou! Do you want yer burger, or not?"

Hunger trumped pride easily, and Heiji grabbed the food from Kazuha's outstretched hand. Just for good measure, he muttered a few mild insults about pushy, whiney teenage girls, but by then Kazuha was immersed in her own burger and didn't bother to answer. Since lunch had been so late, they hadn't really bothered to have a decent dinner until now.

The ride continued with alternating patches of comfortable silence and (mostly) good-natured banter. About three fourths of the way through, Heiji noticed that Kazuha's insults were gradually losing steam, and they eventually tapered off altogether. He couldn't hold back a gentle smirk. Heh. The girl was almost bearable, when she was sleepy.

…She also looked really pretty, with her long eyelashes brushing against her cheeks and the moonlight pouring in through the window to make her ponytail shine with silver.

_Gah_. With a small jolt Heiji tightened his hands on the wheel and fixed his eyes firmly on the road. Where in the world had _that _come from? A little self-consciously, he glanced in the rear-view mirror to see if either Kazuha or Kudo had noticed anything, but Kazuha was nearly asleep and Kudo was still staring dully at his knees.

Well. Alright then. For some reason, Heiji felt himself relax, although there was no reason that he should have felt self-conscious in the first place. No reason whatsoever.

A few minutes later, Heiji was pulling into Kazuha's driveway and gently shaking her awake. (Then, when she didn't wake up, he yelled rather loudly into her ear, which earned him a sharp bop on the noggin. What _was _it with her and hitting people on the head?) There were a few final goodbyes, and then Kazuha was inside and Heiji was pulling away and heading back to his own home.

.*.*.*.

By the time that Heiji got home, it was almost two in the morning. The sleepy, lighthearted mood that had filled the car with Kazuha's presence had long since dissipated into thin air, leaving nothing behind but the silence of the night and the rumble of the car's engine. It seemed hollow, somehow, as if something crucial were missing—as if all of the air had been sucked out of the area, and Heiji was stuck wondering how it had happened.

Kudo's silence seemed suddenly unnerving.

Heiji didn't like silence. It had its uses, he supposed, when it came to making a suspect sweat or listening for auditory clues. Speaking in general, however, Heiji always made the unconscious effort to fill the area around him with noise. Noise meant life, and happiness, and _action_, whereas empty silence spoke of death, feebleness, and _in_action. If there was anything that Heiji hated, it was the feel of doing nothing.

Glancing over his shoulder at Kudo, who was trailing him up Heiji's front walk, he realized that right now, he was effectively doing nothing.

"Oi, Kudo," he said, stopping a few paces before stepping onto the front porch. He stuffed his hands in his pockets casually. "You okay?"

Kudo glanced up at him, shrugged, and walked past him toward the door. He turned around expectantly when he reached it, his blue eyes gleaming brightly under the porch lights. "We going to go inside, or what?"

Heiji's alarm bells were perking up at this point, though they stopped just short of ringing. Kudo had always been a little bit weird—too serious, too somber, too sensitive—and he had always taken things harder than Heiji usually did. Being quiet through the entirety of a long car ride was hardly out of character, if there was something on his mind. …But _this_, combined with the fact that Kudo had even asked to come all the way out to Osaka in the first place…

"Oi," he said again, looking bluntly at the boy in front of him. "Neechan didn't break up with you or somethin', did she?"

The responding look on Kudo's face told Heiji instantly that he had been a little _too _blunt. "_Can it, Hattori."_

"I was just wondrin' if—…"

"Yeah, well stop wondering," said Kudo stiffly, turning to face the door with an air of finality.

Heiji suppressed an instinct to flinch as he took the few remaining steps to the entryway and pushed open the door.

The house was quiet, but a light was on overhead—a sure sign that at least one of his parents was still awake and waiting for him. Heiji rolled his eyes slightly as he slipped off his shoes and stuffed them in the appropriate shelf. No sooner had he called out a quiet 'tadaima' than his mother rounded the corner with a book in one hand and a slightly reproachful look on her face.

"Well, Heiji," she said with a pointed smile. "Good mornin'."

"Hi, Mom," Heiji said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

With a slight sigh, his mother stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. "You realize we'd letcha stay out later if you'd make more of an effort to be home on time?"

"You didn't hafta wait up for me," Heiji said, awkwardly returning the embrace.

"'Course I did," his mother said in a soft, embarrassing croon. Then she stiffened, her gaze finally falling on Kudo, who was standing a little ways away.

"Oh?" she said, cocking an eyebrow. "…An' who's this?"

Kudo blinked in surprise.

"You remember Ku—ah… _Conan_, of course," Heiji said, pasting on a winning smile. "There's some stuff goin' on with the Mouris tonight, so Neechan asked if I could watch 'im for a bit."

"Oh she did, did she?" Both of his mother's eyebrows were raised, at this point.

There was a brief, awkward moment where Heiji's mother looked at him sternly and Heiji did his best just to look innocent. Fortunately, she seemed to decide that it was too late in the day for a decent scolding, and simply shook her head before turning to move down the hallway.

"Well, you're welcome to stay here for the night, Conan-kun," she said over her shoulder as she left. "You'll be comfortable in Heiji's room?"

Between Kudo's apparent depression and his more-recent anger with Heiji's remarks, Heiji wasn't sure how he expected Kudo to respond. When he looked down at the miniaturized detective, however, he almost jumped at the unexpected change. Kudo was practically glowing.

"Yay! I get to sleep over at Heiji-niichan's again!" he cried. Without hesitation, Conan bounded out of the entryway and down the hall in the direction of Heiji's bedroom. His grin would have been bright enough to provide solar power to half of Tokyo.

"He really is a sweet boy, isn't he?" Heiji's mother said affectionately before disappearing around the corner.

It took all of Heiji's willpower to keep from either laughing aloud or shaking his head his disbelief. "Yeah, I guess," he muttered instead, and then moved to catch up with Kudo.

The kid was waiting for him in his room with his arms folded and a disbelieving look on his face. "You didn't even tell her that I was coming over?" he asked.

Heiji shrugged, partly embarrassed and partly pleased with himself. "Well, she can hardly say 'no' this way, can she?"

Kudo rolled his eyes, but made no further complaint.

.*.*.*.

To Conan's dismay, though not his surprise, sleep evaded him that night. Long after a spare futon had been laid out on the floor and he had traded his button-down shirt for an old tee of Hattori's, he found himself staring upwards into the inky blackness above his head.

It felt almost surreal, he mused, to be lying awake in the dark in a place that was not the Detective Agency. The sounds were different. The smell was different. The feel of the space around him was different. Back at the Agency, Ran had installed a small night-light in the hallway, in case someone needed to use the toilet in the middle of the night. Here, all lights were off, and the darkness was absolute.

Restlessly, Conan kicked off his covers, slipped his glasses on due to habit, and crept past Hattori and over to the window on the other side of the room. The Hattori household was built in a traditional Japanese style, so it was covered with a sliding paper screen, rather than curtains or blinds. Quietly, he inched it aside and spent a moment gazing about.

"Kudo?"

Conan hadn't realized how tense he was until Hattori's voice came abruptly from behind. His heart ricocheted in his chest, and it took an enormous effort and a skill borne from years of practice not to jump out of his skin.

"Kudo? 'zat you?" Hattori asked again. A rustling of cloth indicated that Hattori had propped himself up in his bed in order to squint blearily in Conan's direction.

"Yeah," Conan said, feeling his heart rate return to normal.

"Sheesh. G'back ta bed. It's three 'n th' mornin'." The Osakan's voice was slurred with sleep.

Only three? Conan glanced at the alarm clock to Hattori's right. The crimson numbers glared out at him mockingly; it was indeed just 3:06.

Turning his eyes once more to the shadow-infested landscape outside, he slumped exhaustedly and pushed the window shut. _So much for 'collecting myself_,' he thought dully. Instead of yanking his head out of melancholy clouds, he had allowed himself to be tangled up in his usual nighttime paranoia, which had assaulted him with double its typical force.

What was _wrong_ with him, tonight?

He sat there for several long minutes before creeping back to his makeshift bed. To his left, Hattori's loud, regular breathing informed him that the other teenager hadn't remained awake for long.

Seconds ticked by, and Conan stared unblinkingly at the all-consuming darkness above his head. It was a long, long while before he rolled onto his side and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.


	5. Nightmare

A/N: Ohh, this chapter was so deliciously, horribly, awfully fun to write… Angst, meet Conan. Conan, meet angst. You'll be seeing each other a lot, after this… (Cue maniacal laugh).

For those of you who haven't been on my profile, I just wanted to warn you—I'm going to go on hiatus in about two weeks. That's because on November 13, I leave to serve a religious mission in Arizona! (Oh, goodness, I'm getting nervous… I haven't even officially started college, yet). I'm glad I'm going, but unfortunately, it means that I won't be able to write for a while—18 months, to be exact. I should have enough time to get a few more chapters posted, but probably won't have time to finish the story. Instead, I'm going to divide it into parts and try to finish Part 1 before I go. Hopefully, I'll be able to end things on a decent note so that the rest of you won't have to worry about a cliffhanger. Hopefully.

I'm sorry about the hiatus! I've really enjoyed writing, though, and according to the reviews I've gotten, at least some of you have enjoyed reading my work. :) Like I said, I'll do my absolute best not to leave you with a cliffhanger. Thanks for understanding, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

* * *

_The entire world was made of pain._

_Conan forced his lungs to take another ragged, unsteady breath. Unyielding agony had long ago forced him to his knees, and his arms trembled in front of him as he pressed his palms unconsciously against the ground. _

_He stared ahead with a tormented expression that didn't belong on the face of any honest person—let alone the face of a child. _

_He wasn't injured. In fact, he understood perfectly that he was safe, asleep, and dreaming. But kneeling there in the dark, with images of death swimming in front of his eyes, he couldn't keep tears of terrified anguish from running down his cheeks like rain. He wished with all his heart that he could force himself to wake up. He'd seen enough. He'd heard enough. He wanted out, out, out, out, OUT, but he knew that the dream wasn't over yet, and there was nothing that he could do until it was._

_Four bullets. One hypodermic needle. A chemical explosion. Six liters of blood. Three separate kidnappings, and three separate instances of prolonged, inhumane torture. _

_Altogether, he had watched six people die. _

_Conan flinched as the thick layer of darkness surrounding him was pierced by the muted light of fluorescent bulbs. He tried to look away from the picture solidifying in front of him, but even when his eyes were closed, he was always perfectly aware of the events being played out in his dream. There was no escape. _

_The final scene of his nightmare had begun._

.*.*.*.

_The knock on the door of the Detective Agency was quiet, but Ran, who was sitting in the front room, heard it and instantly flew to the door. Kogoro, who was slumped at his desk, raised his head dully, as if asking a silent question, but Ran shook her head gently before turning the doorknob to let their visitor in. Almost reluctantly, he slouched back down to stare at the small mountain of newspapers and scribbled notes piled up in front of him. From the look of him, Conan would have normally thought that he was drunk, but no beer cans were in sight and there was no smell of alcohol about his person. He had never seen the man look so thoroughly miserable._

_When the door opened, no one moved. Ran stood in the entrance with sorrow-filled eyes, her hair waving slightly in the nighttime breeze from the open windows. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but stopped herself and waited instead for their guest to say something first._

"_Ran…" the single word came out in a whisper. The visitor swallowed, but seemed to be unable to make herself continue._

_Gently, Ran reached out and placed one hand on Kazuha's shoulder. "You're welcome to stay at our house tonight. Your mom called to tell us you were on your way, so the futon is already set up in my room."_

_Kazuha nodded gratefully and allowed Ran to direct her out the door and upstairs to the apartment. _

_The scene lingered for a moment, as it always did, on the Detective Agency, allowing Conan to get a good look at Mouri, who was staring at his scrawled notes with a mixture of hopelessness and anger. Although Conan was too far away to read the various pages strewn about the desk, he somehow knew what a handful of them said, anyway. _

'The lab explosion—not an accident. But there's no proof…'

'Too many of the victims know each other. Why? What's the killer's motive? Revenge on me? Revenge on Edogawa?'_ The name 'Edogawa' was circled, and written below it were the words: _'Not revenge. …But what? Why take the kid?'

_Another note read: _'Kudo's mom—a coincidence? She doesn't fit the pattern. Gather more info about Kudo, Egogawa, and the culprit before making conclusions.'

_One of the pages was entirely blank except for a small group of words that were etched into the paper's center, as if Mouri had gouged the pencil into the notepad in either anger or horror. _'The brat's mom was a fake. Why? Who IS this kid?'

_And there, sitting front and center, was the newspaper from that morning, with the mind-numbing headline splashed cruelly across the page: _DETECTIVE OF THE WEST FOUND DEAD IN ABANDONED SCHOOL BUILDING.

_Mouri got up with a sigh, turning to gaze out the darkened window. He swore quietly, leaned one shoulder against the wall, and swore again, massaging his eyes with one hand. "Hattori," he said in a gravelly voice, "what in the world did you boys get yourselves into?"_

.*.*.*.

_The scene shifted, fading from the relative neatness of the Detective Agency to the more casual feel of the Mouris' apartment._

_Conan, watching with a lump in his throat, could feel the heaviness in the air as Ran led Kazuha through the living room and into her bedroom. There was a small backpack slung over Kazuha's shoulder, and she tossed it listlessly to the floor before sinking down to sit on the futon in silence. Ran, her brow pinched with worry, sat down a few feet away. _

_Again, Ran seemed to think it wise to wait for Kazuha to speak before breaking the silence herself. And after a moment, Kazuha did, meeting Ran's gaze with a surprisingly determined one of her own. _

"_He said for me to give you a message." _

_Ran blinked, genuinely surprised. "Hattori-kun did?"_

_Kazuha didn't answer, so Ran scooted a little bit closer and took her friend's hand in hers. "What did he say?" she prompted gently._

"_He said…" the words caught in Kazuha's throat, and she choked, unable to continue. She swallowed, cleared her throat and tried again. "He said that… he thought… he wasn't positive, though, an' he didn't wanna make you hurt, but… he said that you deserved to know…"_

"_Kazuha," Ran said, a flicker of alarm igniting behind her eyes. "What did he say?"_

_At this, Kazuha closed her eyes tightly and shook her head, tensing her arms and shoulders as she made an attempt to regain control. After a few seconds, she relaxed and forced herself to look back at Ran. _

_Her next words—and Ran's reaction—stabbed at Conan like a razor-sharp knife to his throat._

"_I think Shinichi-kun is dead."_

_The intermittent bursts of silence up to this point had been awkward, heavy, and cruelly sad. The utter stillness that followed this comment, however, was an entirely new kind of monster. It writhed like an eel, burned like a branding iron, and stretched tense like an occupied noose. _

"_Shinichi?" Ran repeated dumbly, as if she hadn't comprehended the words._

"_It's what he said." Kazuha's voice squeaked, but she looked at Ran with honesty, pity, and an understanding kind of sorrow. "I don' know how he knew it, but…"_

"_He's wrong," Ran whispered. Her gaze hardened._

_Kazuha blinked in surprise._

"_He's wrong," Ran repeated, sounding almost angry. "Shinichi can't be dead. He __isn't __dead__!"_

"_I'm just tellin' you what Heiji said!" Kazuha replied, heat tingeing her own voice. "An' he wasn't wrong. He's __never__—…"_

"_Shinichi wouldn't do that to me!" Ran said, jumping to her feet. "Hattori was __wrong__! Shinichi wouldn't just disappear and then __die__ on me without even—…"_

"_HOW DARE YOU?" Kazuha screeched, jumping to her own feet in response. "HOW DARE YOU TALK LIKE THAT?"_

"_I'll talk how I __want__! __Shinichi __isn't __dead__!_"

"_SHUT UP!" Kazuha's voice rose to a scream. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT __UP__! He wasn't wrong. He's __never__ wrong! Don' talk about Heiji like he didn't care, or like he was some sort of idiot! He was BRILLIANT! He was smarter than all of Japan put together, an' you didn't see his FACE! You didn't see his __face__ as he was lyin' there on the floor, an' there was blood everywhere, an' he looked at me an' I knew I was never gonna see him again…"_

_The tirade was interrupted by a despairing sob. Ran, pale as a sheet, could only stare as Kazuha trembled for a moment and then broke down entirely, collapsing to her knees with tears rolling heavily down her face. _

"_I'm never gonna see him again."_

_And then, Ran was back at her side, a myriad of emotions overridden by the more immediate need to comfort her friend, and Kazuha was sobbing into her shoulder so hard that she couldn't speak. _

_Conan groaned in his own type of anguish, but nobody else could hear. The knife at his throat had erupted into hundreds of daggers piercing his flesh. It was too much. Each one of Kazuha's despairing shrieks; Ran's pale, shaken expression; the similar cries of dozens of mourners; and the horrible, terrible murders that he had seen sliced into him with a vengeance. He __hurt__._ _H_e_ hurt __so __much_.

_Minutes passed, and Conan watched it all through a haze. Eventually, Kazuha's crying stopped, and she sank exhaustedly onto her futon without bothering to change her clothes. Ran stayed and watched her for a couple of minutes, and then raised herself to her feet, creeping quietly out of her room before sinking onto the couch. _

_She looked half dead. Her eyes held nothing but exhaustion. She made no effort to move, or look around, or to do anything at all but breathe. Finally, a stray spark of energy somehow worked its way into her limbs, and she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. _

_As she pushed the buttons, Conan recognized the distinct tones of his—Shinichi's—phone number. _

_No one picked up on the other end._

_Ran, swallowing, tried again. And again. Listlessness turned into agitation, anxiety, and then a strange, angry emotion that seemed to border on panic. Altogether, she dialed his number no less than thirteen times before she gave up. Then, after a horrible pause, she dialed a different number, one last time. Conan's number._

_No one answered her call._

_Trembling violently, Ran stood and crossed over to a nearby window, staring out into the dark, inky sky. The moon wasn't visible in the heavens._

"_Shinichi," she whispered, still clutching her phone. _

"_Shinichi," she said again, and this time her voice was louder and shaking. _

"_SHINICHI! WHERE ARE YOU!?"_


	6. Fake Tears and True Screams

A/N: Yay, I got the next chapter up quickly again! I'm usually a horrible procrastinator, but apparently, having a two-week deadline is helping to motivate me.

(Just a note before we start—I don't want to start any arguments or anything, but this fic isn't shounen-ai and I don't plan for it to become shounen-ai in the future. I won't ever write a story that has same-gender pairings, simply because it's against my religious beliefs. Any affection seen in this chapter comes from platonic friendship only… …that, and the desperation that comes from being traumatized.)

In other news, thanks to DragonAce1999, Tonegawa Rie, and Krista Perry for your reviews! Seriously. I _love_ reviews. They're a huge motivation, and the feedback I get from all of you are part of the reason that I've put so much work into this story. Again, thank you! I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations!

* * *

When Conan woke, his mouth was already opened wide in a scream.

His clothes were drenched with a cold sweat, and his blankets were twisted around him like ropes. Distantly, he was aware that the lights had been turned on, but his frazzled brain was reeling from the nightmare, and wouldn't take in much else. His entire body was shaking so hard that his limbs felt numb.

"—Kudo? _Kudo! _Listen to me, ahou, and wake up!"

Conan's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, and he sat bolt upright, yanking his entangled hands out of the mess of his blankets. Throwing his covers off entirely, he ignored Hattori's anxious calls and dashed out the door and down the hallway to the toilet. No sooner had he reached it than he vomited violently. It was as if his entire body was recoiling away from the images still painted vividly in his head.

When he was done, he didn't move, except to sink to the floor and tremble.

Breathe. _Breathe._

"Kudo?"

His chest felt so, so _tight_. Why couldn't he just _breathe_?

"Kudo! I'm tryin' to ask you if you're alright!"

"Stop it," he managed to choke, raising his head feebly to glare at Hattori, who was standing in the doorway. "Just shut up and leave me alone."

Hattori gaped at him for a moment, but by this point, he had been all but worked up into a frenzy. "What in the _world_, Kudo!? What is goin' _on_ with you?

Pictures flashed in front of Conan's eyes, each more horrible than the last. Hattori, backed into a corner. Hattori, bleeding and injured on a dust-covered floor. Hattori, whispering his last words to the people he loved. Hattori, dead because of his connection to Shinichi Kudo and a certain Organization.

Dead. Because of him.

"Get away from me," Conan hissed, blind terror giving power to his words. "Please get away."

"Kudo, I'm tryin' to help!"

"Just leave me al—…"

"_Are you kiddin' me?_" Hattori's voice rose to an incredulous shout. "I'm asleep, an' then the next thing I know, you're thrashin' around like you're under attack, an' then you just start _screamin'_! I've _never_ heard you scream like that before! An' if you think I'm just gonna roll over an' pretend like everything's _fine_…"

Still shaking and feeling very, very weak, Conan looked away, forced himself to his feet, and pushed past Hattori to go back to the bedroom.

"Oi! Kudo!"

Conan didn't answer as he collapsed in the center of Hattori's room. Somehow, he felt numb and hyperaware at the same time—each shape and every shadow pressed themselves upon his mind in a flood of paranoia-induced observation, but he felt oddly detached from his body, and from Hattori's shouts. The Osakan had followed him back, and was standing just inside the room with his back to the door.

"_Fer cryin' out loud! Will you—_…"

"An' just _what_ is goin' on here?" a more feminine voice interrupted. Out of the corner of his eye, Conan glimpsed Hattori's mother standing in the doorway.

Hattori froze.

There was a half-second where nobody moved, but that half-second was more than enough for a look of sheer _terror_ to flash into Hattori's face.

"Heiji! I asked you what just happened!" The woman's voice held the stern kind of anger that always comes from worry, and she was staring in turn at the boy on the floor and her son, who was towering over him with a furious, frantic cry still on his lips. His behavior was all wrong for someone who was comforting a child, and he had called Conan 'Kudo' at least six times since Conan had woken up. Just how much had she heard?

"I… Uh…" Hattori turned towards his mother, belatedly trying to relax his shoulders and take on a more casual stance. Absolute horror had obviously driven all thought from the normally quick-witted Osakan's head.

There was no time to work out a plan. There was no time to do anything but _act._ Gritting his teeth against his own numb, dizzy state, Conan took a short breath and spoke.

.*.*.*.

Heiji didn't want to admit just how badly he had been shaken by the sound of Conan Edogawa's scream.

Heiji was used to danger. And he was used to seeing other people in pain. He dealt with murderers, almost-victims, hostages, and grieving friends on an almost weekly basis, and he was used to pushing his own feelings aside until after he'd worked through the problem. Until he had heard Conan scream, he hadn't thought there was anything left that could faze him.

And until he had noticed his mother watching the both of them, Heiji hadn't realized that anything could make him panic enough to lose his senses entirely.

"Heiji! I asked you what just happened!"

Heiji couldn't think of a response. Never mind that he had wormed his way out of worse before. Never mind that, by thinking quickly, he could have probably come up with a reasonable explanation. At the moment, his mind was only capable of repeating one thought, over and over again: _Not her. Not my mom. Oh, please, Kudo, don't let her find out. Drag anyone into this but her…_

Then, a childish wail split the air behind him, and for the second time that night, Heiji found himself jerking to attention at the noise coming from Kudo's lips. This time, however, instead of feeling sick, Heiji found himself staring at the kid in awe.

"H-H-Heiji-niichan! I was so scared!"

It was all that Heiji could do to keep from spluttering in surprise as a small hand reached up to grab at his pajamas, just below the knee. Tears were rolling down Conan's face—tears that certainly hadn't been there only a moment before.

"It was so dark! And we were in the cave, and I didn't know what was going on, and Genta-kun looked so scared, and then Ayumi-chan screamed, and it _hurt__!_ My side hurt so much, and I was scared, and I didn't know what to do…" the wail was interrupted by a heartrending and juvenile sob as Conan broke down entirely, clutching at Heiji's leg.

Out of the corner of his eye, Heiji saw his mother press a hand to her mouth in sudden understanding.

"I… Hey, it's alright," Heiji said, bending down and patting Kudo awkwardly on the back. With his mother watching, it didn't seem like enough, so he scooped the kid into his arms and knelt there on the floor as if he'd just been trying to help comfort "Conan" all along.

"It hurt so much, and I was so dizzy, and everybody else kept looking at me like I was going to die…"

"Oh, Conan-kun," Heiji's mother murmured, bending down to brush her fingertips through the kid's sweat-soaked hair. "Conan-kun, it's okay…"

A minute ticked slowly by as Conan calmed and Heiji watched, dumbfounded. If he hadn't known who Kudo was, there was no way he would have thought that Conan was anything but a terrified first-grader who'd just relived a recent memory in his nightmares. There was something in his mother's eyes that told him that she still had a few questions. Apparently, she had heard enough of Heiji's yelling to disapprove of how he'd handled the situation, and she was almost certainly wondering why he had been shouting 'Kudo' at the top of his lungs. For now, however, all of her attention was absorbed by the child in front of her. Everything else could wait.

It took a minute of coaxing, but eventually Heiji was able to convince his mother that he had things under control, and she left to go back to her room. Kudo's half-muffled tears stopped the instant she was gone.

His ragged, labored breathing, however, did not.

Neither boy said anything for a while. Heiji had absolutely no idea of what he _could_ say. 'Thanks?' 'Good acting?' 'Sorry I panicked, but it's really your fault for freakin' me out like that in the first place?' Nothing fit.

It took him a minute to realize that he was still half-holding Kudo, who was leaning against his left side and staring at the opposite wall with utterly lifeless eyes. For some reason, the expression scared him almost as much as the scream had, and Heiji squeezed Kudo's miniscule shoulders just a little bit closer to himself.

Heiji had never considered himself to be a 'touchy, feely' person. Sure, he often ruffled Kudo's hair or hoisted him up just so that he could hear the boy squawk, but there was a difference between that and touching someone to show comfort or support. Sitting there awkwardly with Kudo wrapped in one of his arms, Heiji wasn't sure if he was doing things right. The 'kid' was seventeen, after all. Maybe he should have just left Kudo alone.

Still, for all of Heiji's uncertainty, Kudo didn't seem to care. He was too exhausted, weak, and scared to care about much of anything. So Heiji sat there quietly, squeezing the boy tightly and hoping Kudo was okay.

"Oi," he said roughly, after a couple of minutes passed with no change. "Can you hear that?"

Kudo's eyes flicked up to him, a bit of confusion penetrating their dull gleam. There was another moment of silence, but eventually, comprehension dawned on Kudo's face as he realized that there was only one sound in the quiet room that Heiji could possibly be talking about. Kudo's head was resting limply against the left side of Heiji's ribcage—a perfect position to listen to Heiji's heartbeat.

A bit of sternness worked its way into Heiji's tone. "You hear it, right? Well, guess what, Kudo—that's the sound of me _not bein' dead_."

If Heiji had been trying to get a reaction, he had certainly found the way to do it. No sooner had the words left Heiji's mouth than Kudo thrust away from him violently, scrambling across the floor with a look of mingled fear and absolute _fury _on his face.

"And what in the world," he demanded, "would make you say a stupid thing like—…"

"You're a good actor, Kudo," Heiji said, cutting him off harshly, "but you've still got a handful of 'tells' you need to work on. Whenever you think 'bout someone gettin' hurt, you stare at the part of their body where you're imaginin' the injury. Before my mom came in, you kept on lookin' at my ribcage just above my stomach, which means you prob'ly watched me die in whatever nightmare you just had. Am I right?"

The horrified widening of Kudo's eyes confirmed Heiji's guess.

"Baka," Kudo spat. "It's none of your business!"

"None of my…" Heiji stared, bewildered by the anger radiating from the boy in front of him. "An' how on _Earth_ is this not my business?"

"How about you just _shut up_?" Kudo snarled, shoving himself to his feet. He stalked forward and stabbed one tiny finger at Heiji's chest. He didn't shout—he knew better than to attract the attention of Heiji's mother again—but his voice was sharp and quietly vicious. "I didn't ask you to get involved with this, and I didn't ask for your pity or your help!"

Heiji blinked, leaning slightly backwards and away from Kudo's ice-cold stare. "_Excuse_ me?"

"You heard me! So back off!"

"First of all, no! Not until I get some answers! An' second of all, Kudo, _what happened to you tonight?_"

"I said it's not your business!"

"That's not the point! An' will you quit avoidin' my questions? You've been actin' weird all night, and that stupid nightmare or whatever it was scared the _snot_ outta me! I wanna know what in the world is goin' on with—…"

"_Shut your mouth!_" With these words, Kudo pounded a fist into Heiji's shoulder, interrupting Heiji's whisper-shout with a quiet, fiery intensity that was unlike anything that Heiji had ever seen. "You shut your idiotic mouth! Will you _quit _trying to be my psychiatrist? You're not! You don't know _anything_! You don't even know enough to make a decent _detective_!"

Heiji choked. "_Kudo?_"

Now that Kudo had started, however, he apparently couldn't stop. He still spoke in an almost-whisper, but his trembling had intensified, and his posture, expression, and high-pitched voice each indicated that he was bordering on hysteria. "I don't want anything to do with you! You're incompetent! You're clueless! You're weak! From now on, just stay in Osaka and solve your cases yourself!"

Then came Kudo's final words, and they rang inside of Heiji's head like the ear-splitting clang of a gong. "_Your father is right—you'll never be able to accomplish anything!_"

An icy, unnerving sensation started at the base of Heiji's neck and crawled throughout the rest of his body like a slick, unwholesome frost. Those words, coming from anyone else, would have made him inexpressibly angry. From anyone else, that last line would have made Heiji fly into a rage before grabbing their collar, dragging them down the hall, and throwing them out the front door.

This, however, wasn't just anyone—this was _Kudo_. And Kudo didn't say things like that.

Something was very, very wrong. It didn't make any sense. Try as he might, Heiji was unable to reconcile the harsh words with the person who had said them, and there were a dozen other things that didn't fit into place. _It didn't make any sense!_

Unless…

"You're tryin' to get rid of me."

Kudo didn't relax, exactly, but his vicious expression faltered as he tried to adjust to Heiji's unexpected words. "I'm what?"

Heiji took a deep breath, forcing himself to meet Kudo's burning, blue gaze with his own emerald stare. He was almost startled at the calmness in his own voice. "Kudo, you are officially the single most selfless, idiotic _ahou_ that ever walked the face of this planet."

Whatever Kudo had been expecting, it certainly wasn't that. His face, already pale, turned a whole new shade of white. "_Selfless_? Didn't you _hear_ me? I just said that—…"

"What you just said," Heiji interrupted, "was a load of trash, an' I'll bet you nearly threw up again while forcin' yourself to say it." He hesitated for a moment, still hardly able to believe his own explanation for Kudo's behavior, and then watched his friend closely as he completed the rest of his thought.

"I think you watched me die in that dream, an' it freaked you out so much that now you're tryin' to convince me that you're not worth my time."

If Heiji had pulled out a gun and pointed it at Kudo's heart, he doubted that the shrunken detective could have looked more stunned or more afraid. His trembling had all but tripled in intensity, and he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

"You're tryin' to make me ditch you," Heiji said, as if repeating the idea would make it easier to understand. He felt like his innards had been crammed into a blender with the power set on high. "_Why?_"

Rather than answering, Kudo stumbled backwards and collapsed back onto the floor. His eyes fell away from Heiji's, and he kept his head turned downward so that Heiji couldn't see his face.

After a pause, Heiji shifted his weight and settled onto his knees. "Kudo?"

No answer.

"_Kudo_." For the first time, a bit of real, honest-to-goodness anger slipped into Heiji's voice. "_Did you really think that'd work?_"

When Kudo still didn't respond, Heiji clenched his fists tightly, feeling the heat rise in his face as he realized just how _offended_ he was. The insults didn't matter—he couldn't have cared _less_ about Kudo's insults. But the fact that Kudo had apparently thought that their friendship was fragile enough to be broken with a few thoughtless words…

"_Ahou!_" he said, barely managing not to yell."What in the hey is wrong with you!? What could possibly make you desperate enough to try somethin' like that? _An' what in the whole wide stinking __world__ could possibly convince you that it would __work_? I'm your friend, Kudo! Do you really think I'm that _dense_? Do you really think that you could just yell out a couple of random insults an' make me turn my back on you?"

Heiji had partly been expecting Kudo to shrink back in shame, or maybe even to snap his head back up and start tearing into him again. Instead, the tiny meitantei drew his legs up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and whispered, "Why not? It worked with everyone else."

The angry tension in the room drained away as suddenly as if someone had pulled an invisible plug.

Heiji's chest felt tight. "It… what?"

Naturally, there was no response.

Kudo's breathing was _still_ irregular, and as Heiji watched, the kid was overtaken by a series of wracking coughs that came from deep in his throat and shook his entire frame. For the first time, Heiji noticed that Kudo's sweat-soaked collar was stretched into an irregular shape, as if it had been pulled repeatedly away from his neck over the last few minutes. It was almost as if the kid thought that the fabric would strangle him if it crept too close to his throat.

"Kudo," he said, desperation making his voice weak. "Will you just _talk _to me? What _happened_ to you tonight?"

Finally, Kudo uncurled his legs and crawled across the floor to his futon. He didn't look up, but once he was back at the side of the small bed, he spoke. "None of this has much to do with anything that happened tonight. Tonight hurt, but it was still… _normal_. I'd been wanting to confess to Ran, but a case came up, and I transformed before I could get back to her."

Heiji blinked, waiting for more. "…_And_?" Kudo's love life was officially messed up, and Heiji felt sorry for that, but a missed chance for confession wasn't enough to cause the hysteria that he had seen only moments ago.

Again, Heiji's only response was silence.

Still refusing to look in Heiji's direction, Kudo lifted the cover of his futon and lay down, facing the wall. There was an air of finality in the motion, and Heiji knew with a sinking feeling that no matter what he did or said, he wouldn't be getting any more information that night.

Heiji stared at the tatami mats on the floor for a moment longer. Then, on an impulse, he stood up, exited the room, walked to the kitchen, and filled a glass with water. When he returned, he placed the cup within reach of Kudo's futon without looking at him, and then sat down on the edge of his own bed. The kid had just thrown up, after all, and the cups were kept out of a seven-year-old's reach.

Neither boy said anything more, but when Heiji looked back, the glass had been drained. The gesture wasn't anything big, but unless Heiji was imagining things, Kudo's still form seemed a little less tense, after that.

It was still a long while before Heiji could bring himself to turn off the lights.


	7. Liar

A/N: Wow, thanks for the reviews, you guys! I'm flattered that chapter six got so many in such a short amount of time! (Sorry if I haven't responded to any reviews, PMs, etc. recently! I'm doing my best, but I've been really busy getting ready for the mission, so a shout-out here may have to do).

I'm starting to get a little bit nervous about finishing all the chapters I want to finish before I leave—time is running out, and like I said, I've been really, _really_ busy. I think I'll be able to get two more chapters up after this one, but after that, I'm a little less certain of what I'll be able to manage. Anyway, here's the next bit. I hope you like it! Be sure to tell me what you think!

(Tamagoyaki, by the way, is a rolled omlette that is often served as a traditional part of a Japanese breakfast). (Just in case you were wondering).

* * *

Breakfast in the Hattori residence was awkwardly, painfully silent.

Conan had avoided looking Hattori in the eye ever since their conversation last night. There were too many emotions jumbled up in his head for him to even identify _what_ he felt, so he chose to squash it all down into a corner of his mind and ignore it.

He had learned a long time ago that things hurt less that way.

Hattori, wisely, chose not to intrude on Conan's self-imposed isolation. Conan couldn't help but suspect, however, that this had less to do with any tact on Hattori's part than the fact that the other teenager simply didn't know what to say. …Not that there was much that he _could_ say, with his mother listening to their every word.

Conan held back a sigh as he looked at Hattori's mother out of the corner of his eye. His little "act" had averted a potential catastrophe last night, but Conan could tell from the way that the woman pursed her lips that things weren't over yet.

The thought had barely finished forming in Conan's mind before the woman set down her chopsticks delicately, sending a glance at Hattori before turning to face Conan with a slightly forced smile. "Are you alright this morning, Conan-kun? You seemed awfully scared, last night."

"He's fine, Mom," Hattori answered, speaking for him. Glowering slightly, the Osakan detective poked a bit at his bowl of rice, but didn't actually eat from any of the dishes in front of him.

His mother gave a stern, unimpressed hum as she looked at him across the low, polished table. "I see. An' I expect that you yellin' your head off at him last night helped with that?"

Conan smiled cheerfully. "I'm okay! Heiji-niichan was just worried about me. But he shouldn't have been. I'm a big boy, now, and I can handle anything!"

Heiji's mother stared at Conan uncertainly, apparently trying to decide whether to feign cheerfulness and let the subject drop, or whether to push the matter further. "You certainly _can_ handle a lot, Conan-kun," she said. "You're very brave. But…" she trailed off, briefly closing her eyes. She let out a short, exasperated breath, and then voiced her thoughts to the air, rather than anyone in the room. "This's what you get fer lettin' a kid chase after you on all those cases, Mouri-han. I don't know what he was expectin'! Even if _this_ one was an accident—…"

"Hey, the kid'll be _fine_, Mom," Heiji repeated, sitting up straight. "He's seen worse than this before."

"_That_, Hei-chan," his mother said, bristling slightly, "is exactly the problem. I don't care how much Conan-kun likes it, an' I don't care how good he is at "noticin' details". He's far too young to be involved in—…"

"_No!_" Conan yelled, cutting her off. He leapt to his feet, his eyes wide in earnestness.

Both Hattori and Hattori's mother looked at him in surprise.

"No," he repeated. "I'm not too young! I want to be a meitantei when I grow up, just like Heiji-niichan and Occhan and Shinichi-niisan! I want to be the new detective of the east when I'm older!" Allowing a slight tremor to enter his voice, he raised his chin as he placed the finishing touch on his plea—and artfully covered their last base in relation to damage control. "That's why Heiji-niichan calls me 'Kudo,' isn't it? Because I'm going to be a detective!"

To his left, Conan caught a glimpse of Hattori's expression—he seemed stunned, at first, but as realization dawned, his surprise turned into relief mingling with something that looked like pride.

Hattori's mother blinked, taken aback, but she had already raised one stubborn detective and was ready to take on another. "Conan-kun," she said more gently, "Detective work is dangerous. Don't cha think you should wait a few years?"

At this, Conan stood with his back ramrod straight, staring ahead with what hopefully looked like childlike bravery. "I want to catch the bad guys and help the police!" he declared. "I want to keep people safe!" Then, with a plea in his voice, he added, "Please don't make me stop practicing."

The effect was enough to crack even the firmest of stone walls. Hattori's mother gaped, and then a small portion of her heart seemed to melt at something she saw in Conan's eyes. "I… suppose I'll talk to Mouri-han,"she said slowly. "It's his choice, after all. I'm sure you'll make a fine detective, Conan-kun. Just remember that it's important fer you to stay safe, alright?"

A gleeful, grateful look bubbled up over Conan's face, and he bounced excitedly on his feet before pretending to catch himself and giving Hattori's mom a formal bow. "Thank you, Hattori-san! I'll be safe! I promise!"

The woman chuckled, shaking her head a bit as she turned back to her rice and tamagoyaki. "You really are somethin', aren't you, Conan-kun?"

To Conan's other side, Hattori struggled to hold back a disbelieving grin. "You don't know the half of it, Mom."

.*.*.*.

The rest of the morning passed casually enough, with Hattori following his usual form of dragging Conan out the door to see the grand sights of Osaka (which was, of course, oh-so-much better than Tokyo). Conan was pleasantly surprised, however, to find that the Detective of the West knew better than to push things too far, and as soon as they were out of the house, the normally spirited teenager gave Conan a bit of space. Each area they went to was relatively secluded and calm. After trailing through a handful of different places, they stopped for a light lunch, and then headed directly to the nearest station for the bullet train. Conan was still recovering a bit from his recent surgery, and Ran had wanted him home earlier rather than later.

"Nice job, by the way," Hattori said, glancing down at his shrunken companion as they walked along the leaf-strewn sidewalk. It was a warm day, for October, and the bright sun made the colorful trees stand out brightly against the blue sky. "You've got some pretty impressive actin' skills. You think fast, too. I could've come up with everythin' that you came up with, of course, but still… you know."

Conan shrugged. "It wasn't acting so much as it was lying, but thanks."

Hattori stared awkwardly. "Uh… No problem. I guess."

They walked in uncomfortable silence for a minute, but then, Hattori looked back down at him with one eyebrow slightly raised. "What's the difference?"

"Hm?" Conan asked, having only half-heard his companion.

"I just said you're a pretty good actor, didn't I? So what's the difference between actin' an' lyin', in this case?"

"Acting happens on a stage," Conan explained reluctantly. "Lying is done on the spur of the moment, either to people you care about or people you're scared of." He scowled a bit at the sidewalk, but then, to his own surprise, he allowed himself a small smile and sent Hattori a shrewd look. "You, my friend, are a decent actor, but a _terrible_ liar."

Hattori rolled his eyes, but seemed a bit relieved that the conversation had wandered over into normal territory. "Am not. …An' again, what's the difference? If you're good at pretendin' stuff on a stage, then wouldn't that make it easier to—…"

"No, it doesn't," Conan said, cutting him off. "I've read a lot of books like that, where a great actor is automatically a great liar, but in real life the two are completely different things. There's a certain kind of pressure involved in performing, but there's a different, more personal sort of stress involved in lying to someone's face."

"Huh," said Hattori, actually sounding thoughtful. "So what makes you think I'm a bad liar…"

"Which you are."

"…but a good actor? I don't _act_."

"You do on cases," Conan said with another shrug.

Hattori blinked. "Will you stop bein' confusin', fer half a second? A case is a _case_, not a stage."

"It is for you," Conan said with a snort. "The only 'lying' you've done is to set up a scenario to make a culprit confess, and you treat the whole thing like a game. You're almost literally setting the stage for each player to do their part. If the culprit pulled you aside beforehand and asked how the investigation was going, you'd freak out."

"Would _not_," Hattori said defensively. Then, his voice took on a more pensive tone as he raised one hand to his chin in the classic "thinking detective" pose. "Never thought of it that way, though. I'll hafta keep it in mind."

Conan nodded once in agreement, ticking a handful of items off his fingers as he went through a list of examples. "Like I said before, I'm a flawless liar, and while my acting's decent, it isn't _stellar_. Haibara's the same. The rest of the Shounen Tantei are decent actors for their age, but Ayumi's the only one who can actually pull off a fib—the others are almost as bad as you are. Agasa's not brilliant at either, my mom is brilliant at both, Kazuha's an average actor but is a _little _less hopeless at lying than you…"

"Wow… you've put an awful lot of thought into this, Chibi."

"Call me that again, and I'll put a soccer ball where your head should be. But yeah—knowing this stuff has come in handy, so I have sort of a mental catalogue for pretty much everyone I know."

Hattori, thank goodness, was gracious enough not to point out how paranoid it was to keep a mental index of which of your friends could lie to you convincingly. "So…" the Osakan said instead, with a look of feigned disinterest. " 'S there anyone we know who's worse at lyin' than me? …Accordin' to you, that is. I could lie just fine if I wan—…"

"Your lies stink more than a dead skunk stuffed with month-old tuna, and you know it," Conan said with a smirk. "…And while I can't really think of anyone _worse_, I'd say that Ran is pretty much on par with you. She can act just fine, but she couldn't lie to save her life."

"Oh." To Conan's surprise, Hattori's voice took on an odd tone at the mention of Ran's name. Unconsciously, the Kyoto detective raised one hand to finger the brim of his cap, but he seemed to catch himself and resisted the urge to twist it around to the front. "I see," he said, shooting a glance in Conan's direction. "You sure 'bout that, Kudo?"

"Well… she can't lie outright," Conan amended uncertainly, "but she can keep a secret if no one confronts her about it. It depends on how important it is." An unpleasant twinge of suspicion throbbed in his chest, but he did his best to ignore it, attempting feebly to give his companion the benefit of the doubt.

There was the barest hint of a hesitation before Hattori spoke again. "Kinda like how she pretended fer a bit that she didn't know who you were, even though she'd figured it out ages ago?"

Almost imperceptibly, Conan felt himself stiffen.

In an instant, the comfortable atmosphere that had built up over the last few minutes dissipated into nothingness. He was highly aware that Hattori was looking at him strangely, and he gritted his jaw in silence, refusing to answer as he waited for what he knew would come.

"So… tough break last night, huh?" Hattori said, still trying to sound casual.

"You could say that." Eyes unfocused, Conan stared into the distance in the direction opposite of Hattori.

"You went over to the restaurant, tried to confess, an' somethin' happened—prob'ly a case—to interrupt you, an' you transformed before you could actually say anything."

Conan didn't ask how Hattori had known about the case. Really, it must have been easy to tell—the parking lot had still held several police cars when Hattori had come to pick him up.

"You were sulkin' about your rotten love life, so you hitched a ride with me." Here, Hattori hesitated, but pressed onward, his voice hardening slightly despite his still-conversational tone. "Then, you had some sorta nightmare, which shook you up pretty bad, but wasn't related to Neechan. It was just somethin' extra that made a bad night worse. Am I right?"

Conan nodded once, a strange rushing noise in his ears.

"Was it about… you know… _Them_?"

"_Stop_," Conan ordered, refusing to look at Hattori's face. "Just… stop. Please."

Hattori grimaced. Although Conan's response hadn't been an outright "yes," it had still certainly answered his question. "It's not like I blame ya'," the Osakan muttered, partly to himself.

Hattori paused for a long while, and for a second, Conan allowed himself to hope that his mini-interrogation was done. Then, Hattori hunched his shoulders slightly, stared down at him, and said, "An' the breathin'?"

Conan stopped dead on the sidewalk.

"The what?"

"Your _breathin'_, Kudo," Hattori said, stopping as well. "It was all funny last night, like your lungs were filled with smoke. Was it just somethin' about the dream, or…"

"_Shut up!_" Conan yelled, his voice louder than he'd intended. Goosebumps had erupted on every inch of his skin, and the hair on his neck was standing on end. "Just shut your pie hole, Hattori! _None_ of this is _any_ of your business, and if you really are my so-called 'best friend,' then you will just stinking leave me alone!"

"Alright!" Hattori said quickly, flinching back like he'd been slapped in the face. "Alright, alright, I get the point! Geez…"

The smallest fragment of guilt worked its way into Conan's consciousness as he watched Hattori's reaction, which was confused, insulted, angry, and hurt all at once. The guilt was overpowered, though, by the strange noise that was still ringing in Conan's ears, which had escalated to a deafening roar. For a moment, the two boys stared at each other, but Hattori was unwilling to ask anything else, and Conan was unwilling to speak at all.

It was another heavy moment before Conan could force one foot in front of the other again.

The rest of the trip was made in silence, even after Hattori bought the tickets for the shinkansen and rode with him back to Beika. When they got seats, Conan sat with a space between him and Hattori, and when another passenger settled down in the empty seat, he made no move to stop them. By the time the train had reached the proper station, Conan was exhausted again, and forcing himself to stand upright felt almost as difficult as hoisting a three-ton boulder.

As they walked the last few streets to the Detective Agency, Conan moved at a snail's pace with shoulders slightly stooped. It took an awful lot of energy to not let his adult-level weariness show too obviously. Fortunately, although the weather was warm, they didn't happen to run into anyone he knew, and he had learned from experience that strangers didn't care much about people they didn't know.

When they were a little less than a block away, Conan cleared his throat.

"Hey… Hattori," he said, looking down at his feet.

Hattori looked over at him, one eyebrow upraised.

"Look, just… I'm not myself, right now. You get that, right? I need a little time to get reoriented, and get myself back to normal, and…" Conan swallowed, his eyes boring holes into his shoes. Now that he'd had some time to cool down, his conscience was squirming uncomfortably, but the images of last night's dream were still fresh in his mind, and he couldn't quite bring himself to apologize outright.

Hattori waved one hand in a dismissive gesture, seeming to understand. "Hey, don't worry about it," he said lightly.

Grateful, but numb, Conan nodded in response.

A soft, drawn-out sigh sounded from above him, and in spite of himself, Conan's gaze was drawn back to his taller companion. Hattori's brow had furrowed grimly, as if he had swallowed something bitter. It must have been driving the teenage detective insane, not being able to jump in and solve Conan's still-unknown problem. Hattori never _had _known when to leave well enough alone.

Fiddling a little with the hem of his jacket, Hattori asked, "Are you gonna be alright, Kudo?"

Here, Conan smiled, using his last dregs of energy to force a bit of brightness into his eyes. "Of course I am," he he said lightly, ignoring the hot, sick sensation that had blossomed deep in his gut.

Hattori looked uncertain, but there was nothing else he could say.

Conan, after all, had always been an immaculate liar.


	8. Bravery, Trust, and Gratitude

A/N: Hi, everyone! I'm back! Unfortunately, this may just be the _last _time I'll be back for a while—I leave on my mission in just two days, which isn't enough time to get the next chapter completely done.

I really am sorry about the hiatus, but I'm really excited about a chance to serve a mission for my church. (It's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, for anyone who's curious. All members of the Church get a chance to serve missions at about the time they get out of high school). I'm nervous, but excited, too, so everyone wish me luck!

I want to thank _everyone_ who has left me a review, favorited, or followed this story—it means more than I can say! I'm sorry to those people that I haven't been able to thank specifically, but I really do love every single review I get.

IMPORTANT: I have one last question for all of you, which I've listed in some additional author's notes at the end of the chapter. Any feedback on this question is _highly_ appreciated, because it will influence what I will do when I get back from my mission!

So. Without further ado, here's my last chapter (for the time being). Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

School for Conan was always tedious, boring, and frustrating. ...Which made it, essentially, just like his time at Teitan High.

The _first_ time that Shinichi Kudo had entered elementary, it hadn't taken his parents long to realize that he was far, far more advanced than the other students. In fact, he was so far advanced that in order to learn in a challenging environment, he would've either had to be taught separately from everyone, or else learn with a group twice his age. Ultimately, they had decided that he needed the "social aspect" of normal public school, and he had stayed in regular first grade with more specialized study at home.

The routine then had been (a) tune out during most of class, (b) ace every test, and (c) repeat until his brains melted out of skull. Now, the routine was the same. The only difference was that, instead of daydreaming or passing notes to Ran, he spent each class laughing at the Shounen Tantei's whispered antics and exchanging secret conversations with Haibara.

Though he hated to admit it, he may actually have been less bored the second time around than he had been the first.

Still, as Conan stood outside the door to classroom 1-B with the events of the past few days on his shoulders, he felt as if his feet had been frozen to the floor. A familiar, numb sort of weight had settled over his tiny form, and he found that he was dreading the moment he would have to interact with anyone else. He clung to the relative calmness of the hallway like a mountain plant clings to a cliff. So long as he was here in the hallway, he could stand still and not have to think. So long as he stayed in the hallway, he could enjoy a few last moments of peace.

"There you are, Conan-kun!" piped an overly cheerful voice from just ahead.

Conan winced as three sets of bright, excited eyes spotted him in the doorway and the Shounen Tantei darted eagerly over to him through the maze of students.

So much for his "few last moments of peace."

The mini-teenager squeezed his eyes shut, then forced himself to relax. "Hi, everyone," he said tiredly. "Look, I haven't slept well for the past few nights, so—…"

"Conan-kun! Conan-kun!" Ayumi, the smallest of the bunch and arguably the most spirited, bounced up and down as she grabbed his hand and towed him into the classroom.

It was all Conan could do to maintain his balance as the kids pulled him toward the room's center. "You guys, hold on!" he said. "Ow! Wait! I'm still not feeling very good!"

Ayumi dropped his hand instantly and stopped in her tracks. Mitsuhiko—a skinny, freckled boy with intelligent eyes—nearly bumped into her from behind. "I-I'm sorry, Conan-kun!" Ayumi squeaked, looking at him in sudden fear. "Are you okay?"

"You are still injured?" Mitsuhiko asked, surprised. Immediately, he scanned Conan up and down with a concerned expression. "Why, then, did they release you from the hospital? If it still pains you go about your day-to-day activity…"

"No, no," said Conan, backtracking a step with his hands held out in front of him. "I'm okay! Really! I'm just not back at one-hundred percent, so I have to take it kind of easy." Silently, he wondered where Mitsuhiko had even _learned _the overly proper grammar that he used on a regular basis.

"Che. Of course he's fine," said the third and final member of the elementary detective gang. "_I'm_ the one who carried him out of that cave, aren't I?" A wide grin split Genta's face as the large, tan-skinned boy jerked his thumb at his own chest in a proud gesture.

Ayumi giggled, and Mitsuhiko rolled his eyes. In the background, the rest of the students had noticed Conan and were sending smiles or welcoming waves his way. In spite of himself, Conan felt a bit of the tightness in his chest soften.

"Hey, Mitsuhiko-kun?" Conan said as Genta continued to brag about his heroism for Ayumi's benefit. "Actually, just because someone is home from the hospital, it doesn't mean that they're all the way better. You know that, right?" The boy was intelligent, especially for his age. Conan couldn't help but want to correct the occasional misunderstanding.

"Eh?" Mitsuhiko asked. "Of course I know that. I simply believed that no doctor would allow their patient to go home if they were unable to function in their daily routine."

"You're mostly right," Conan said with a nod, "but there's only so many rooms in a hospital, and they can't let all of their patients stay forever. The patients usually go home as soon as they're stable—they still might have to recover a bit before they can dive back in to work and stuff."

"Are you two done talking yet?" Genta said, obviously impatient. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Conan's seat.

At this, Conan felt his curiosity perk up a bit, and he turned his own eyes to look over at his desk. He couldn't see it, however, though a cluster of children that had accumulated around the area. Most of them were whispering and giggling excitedly, and all of them were looking his way.

Conan's brow furrowed. "You guys, what…"

"Come on!" Ayumi cried, her usual excitement making her giddy. Once again, she grabbed his hand, but this time she was a bit more careful. "Close your eyes, Conan-kun! We've got something special to show you!"

Conan hesitated. A prick of old suspicion tingled in the back of his mind—the Shounen Tantei were more unpredictable than a bad game of roulette, after all—but he pushed it down after another look at the children's excited smiles. Obligingly, he closed his eyes, and allowed the kids to lead him over to his desk.

"Not yet… just a little more… Hey! No peeking!" Ayumi scolded when Conan mischievously started to crack one eyelid open. Fighting back a chuckle, he quietly obeyed.

"And… There!" Ayumi said, her voice proud. "Go ahead and look!"

Uncertainly, Conan opened his eyes. Once they were open, he blinked, looked closer, and blinked again.

"Ta-da!" Genta sang out, obviously pleased. "What do you think?"

Neatly arranged on Conan's desk were piles and piles of hand-drawn cards, each of which had been made by a member of class 1-B. Many were covered with pictures himself in a hospital bed. By the looks of things, there were also a handful of cards from people outside the classroom, including ones from Ran, Professor Agasa, and even a handful of members of the Tokyo police force. There was a brightly-colored balloon tied to his chair, as well—one of the students must have been holding it down so that he wouldn't see it beforehand. On top of everything else, there was a vase containing three bright flowers in the desk's center—a pink rose, a peony, and a tall, bright bluebell.

"You guys…" Conan breathed, staring openly at the presents.

"What?" said a voice from his right. "Were you expecting them to lead you into some sort of deathtrap?" Haibara, sitting stoically at her own desk, looked over at him with cool grey eyes.

"Of course not!" Conan responded. "I just…"

"I suppose a little _gratitude_ for their hard work would be too much to ask," she said coldly. Without another glance his way, she buried her nose in a book she'd had out on her desk.

_Oh, that's right_, Conan remembered numbly. _I'm mad at her. I guess._

He felt his cheeks start to flush defensively, but then he turned his gaze back over to his desk and felt a bit of warmth kindling inside him. Hesitantly, he reached out and brushed his fingertips over the pile of hand-drawn papers, noticing that the three done by the Shounen Tantei were highly elaborate and must have taken a lot of time.

"Wow… thanks, you guys," he said. He didn't have to fake the heartfelt gratitude in his voice. He had all but forgotten that today was his first day back at school since the incident in the cave.

"Ayumi-chan, Mitsuhiko-kun, and Genta-kun were the ones in charge of everything," said a new voice from Conan's left. Kobayashi-sensei, the teacher of classroom 1-B, smiled down at him, then sent an approving look in the Shounen Tantei's direction. "They came up with the idea, asked for donations for the supplies, and helped put everything together."

The kids beamed proudly, and Conan struggled not to gape. Wait—the _Shounen Tantei _had been the ones to coordinate this project? And it had actually _worked_?

There was a burst of chatter as the rest of the students chimed in to point out what their part in the surprise had been ("That one is my card! See?") but apparently, things were getting a little too rowdy for Kobayshi, because she interrupted with a sharp clap of her hands.

"Alright, everyone—it's just about time to head back to your seats," she said over all the noise. "Class will be starting in just a few minutes."

Most of the students quieted and gradually trickled back to their assigned desks, but the Shounen Tantei remained.

"Do you like them?" Mitsuhiko asked, indicating the vase of flowers. His hands were clasped a little restlessly behind his back, and he kept on shifting his weight, as if he was waiting for something.

"Of course I do," Conan responded, pushing them up a bit further on his desk to get them out of the way. In America, flowers were considered feminine, but this wasn't necessarily true in Japan, and they added a nice touch. Admittedly, the three mismatched flowers were a bit of an odd combination, but…

…an odd combination…

Conan blinked, and then looked at the flowers again. A peony. A pink rose. And a long stem of bluebells. A smile split Conan's face as he realized what he had almost missed. Mitsuhiko, watching him, beamed with pride.

"I picked them out!" he chirped eagerly. "I was pleased with my deductions in the cavern last week, and was surprised at how useful my knowledge of basic Shogi was in breaking the code. I have since read through several books on the subjects of different codes and other trivia, one of which was hanakotoba—the Japanese language of flowers!"

Conan wondered why he hadn't seen it before. The flowers stood for bravery, trust, and gratitude—Mitsuhiko had obviously tried to make a personalized message to fit the special occasion. For someone who had once been so keen to show off his intellect, he had been rather humble about it, too. Instead of launching into a long, know-it-all explanation like he would have when Conan had first met him, he had waited quietly to see if his efforts had been noticed. Now, he was positively glowing with pride at having seen his talents appreciated.

Knowing that Mitsuhiko looked up to Conan—and that Conan may have even changed the boy's attitude for the better—touched the mini-teenager more than the flowers ever could. All at once, Conan felt a strange desire to laugh. Apparently, hanging around someone smarter than himself had taken Mitsuhiko down a peg, and the boy was much more pleasant for it.

…Actually, Conan mused dryly, something similar was true of Hattori. He held back a smirk at the thought.

Then, he winced. The Shounen Tantei weren't the only ones who had earned a rather large 'thank you' over the past forty-eight hours.

"I must, however, give credit where credit is due," Mitsuhiko continued, oblivious to Conan's thoughts. The boy's freckled cheeks flushed slightly pink as he flicked his eyes to Conan's right. "Haibara-san was the one who came up with the idea. She suggested it only yesterday, in fact, as a last-minute finishing touch. I simply made the choice of which flowers to incorporate in the bouquet."

"_Haibara's _idea?" Conan's voice had probably come out a bit too loudly, but he didn't much care. He whirled to stare at the indifferent, cold, uncaring girl who had all but scolded him for his outburst of emotion on Saturday night—the girl who had apparently suggested that the Shounen Tantei buy him flowers.

Haibara glanced at him, shrugged, and then turned back to her book.

"That's right!" Ayumi chimed in. "She said she thought that you could use some cheering up."

"He seems fine, to me," Genta grumbled, jealously noticing the way that Ayumi's brows had pinched together in concern.

"Did we cheer you up, Conan-kun?" Ayumi said, ignoring Genta. Her voice had taken on a more serious tone, and she rested her light hands on his desk as she looked him in the eyes. "You weren't smiling when you came into the classroom. Are you happy now?"

Something stirred in Conan's chest. Mitsuhiko was looking at him with the same curious intensity that Ayumi was, and though Genta was trying not to show it, he looked worried, as well. Even Haibara was studying him out of the corner of her eye. Slowly, a real, genuine smile blossomed over Conan's face, and he looked at each one of his friends in turn.

"I'm happy," he said in a soft voice. Then, louder, he said, "Of course I'm happy! We're the Shounen Tantei, aren't we? Nothing can stand in our way!"

His words earned an enthusiastic cry from the other three, and they punched their hands in the air in the same way they always did. The intensity vanished, and unless it was Conan's imagination, their smiles were all a little bit brighter than normal as they returned to their seats at the start of class.

"It's awfully easy to underestimate those three, isn't it?" Haibara asked without looking up. "It's surprising how much they grow on you."

Conan couldn't speak around the lump in his throat, but he nodded agreement as he gazed after them. Bravery, trust, and gratitude. All at once, he wondered if Mitsuhiko would ever know how well he had described Conan's feelings about being part of their team.

At the end of the day, when it was time to go home, Genta, Ayumi, and Mitsuhiko rushed to Conan's desk and declared that it was a perfect day to go on another super-exciting detective adventure. When Conan had first met the gang all those months ago, he would have tried to worm his way out. Instead, he grinned, sent Ran a text to say that he would be home late, and then helped the other three coax Haibara into joining them. With the cards in his backpack, the balloon in his hand, and the flowers placed carefully on Kobayashi's desk where everyone could see, he rushed out the door with the others, feeling more genuinely cheerful than he had in a very long time.

* * *

A/N: (Well, at least I managed to end things on a positive note, since you guys will have to wait so long for anything else. Hopefully, it will keep people from getting too frantic about any loose ends that I haven't tied up). ;)

In the meantime, though, I have a question. I planned this story out as a long, complex project that would eventually culminate in a showdown against the Black Organization. The problem is, I'm scared that by the time I come back, all the ideas I have planned will be a bit… _outdated_. I'm already behind on watching the episodes, and as a result, there are some things I have planned for the climax of my story that wouldn't include some bits of more-recently revealed canon. (Bourbon, for example, isn't a part of my story, right now, because I don't know much about him). If I wait 18 months before writing anything else, then my knowledge of the series will be even _more_ lacking, and my fic will follow the canon even _less_.

So. Here's the question. Is that okay with you readers? Do you mind reading a story with a few outdated ideas? Or should I scrap this fic after wrapping up a couple loose ends with Heiji? If you have any suggestions or any other ideas of what I should do, _please_ write a review to let me know! I'll take everyone's thoughts into consideration.

Thanks in advance for your help. Also, thank you again for reading my story! Bye for now—I'll see you again in 18 months!


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